The present invention relates to an angular accelerometer having a Terfenol cylinder and more particularly to an angular accelerometer that has a high coupling factor, high temperature stability and can function at low frequency.
Prior art angular accelerometers include piezoelectric transducers or gyroscopic elements, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,863,508 of Scarborough et al. These prior art angular accelerometers are deficient in that the gyroscopic elements are extremely complex and require time-consuming and expensive maintenance while the piezoelectric transducers have relatively low coupling factors and poor low frequency response.
Additional background information on Terfenol and its physical properties is discussed in "Perpendicular Susceptibility, Magnetomechanical Coupling and Shear Modulus in Tb.sub.0.27 Dy.sub.0.73 Fe.sub.2 " by H. T. Savage and R. Abbundi, IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, Vol. Mag-14, No. 5, September 1978.